Shadowboxers
by Hitmonchu
Summary: From the Inception kink meme. Prompt: COBB/EVERYONE. I want Cobb trying to find different pieces of his relationship with Mal in other people.


Every one of their potential candidates has to pass a test before they are allowed access to the dream world. "Create a maze in two minutes that takes one minute to solve." Most people are continually foiled and fail. Less continue trying until they are forced to innovate, and succeed.

Cobb wakes up in a haze. The room is lit dimly with red and gold, sharp blades of light cutting through dark grey smoke. The room smells of cheap wine and cigarettes and _something else_, and he quickly becomes aware that his hands are suspended above his head, eyes actually covered by a swath of woven fabric.

A dull glass edge is pressed violently to his lips, a strangely cold liquid sloshing up and burning his skin and nostrils. A hand presses against his hip. "Drink this." A voice laced with a warm, lazy accent commands, pushing the liquid insistently against his mouth again.

Cobb feels a sharp slap on his thigh, and then another person laughing, and then again. He opens his mouth to protest and the liquid flows in. It feels like frostbite as it goes down, hot and freezing all at once. "Do as he says." The voices are familiar, but somehow without sight, he isn't sure. As the liquids rush to his belly, he immediately feels his body slacken. "There's a good boy."

A hand wraps around his neck and he feels his clothes being ripped off unceremoniously. Cold metal is pressed up against his face and he stiffens as the blindfold falls to his bare collarbone.

"Good morning, sunshine." Eames is gleefully spinning a glinting paring knife. He runs his rough fingers against Cobb's inner thigh. Late afternoon silhouettes play across his face, expression unreadable.

Yusuf is sitting next to him on the bed with an empty flask in his hands. He grins awkwardly. "Hi," he says.

"Well then. Shall we get started?" The knife traces down his chest and Cobb tenses, though his body is quickly numbing from the sedative. Eames flips the blade in his hand like a juggler and searches the other man's eyes before pressing the sharp side across his stomach, gently first.

"Uh, is this okay?"

"Darling, it's just a dream." The window panes shudder, and Eames quickly turns to the other man. "Why don't you try it too?"

Then, the skin gives way like a fruit being peeled, drops of blood beading on the surface. Yusuf lets out a sharp squeak in surprise and is smacked on the shoulder by Eames. Cobb is hissing in pain, though the feeling is slowly giving way to a dull, warm sense of pleasure.

Eames presses the flat of the blade into Cobb's stomach to brace himself as he draws his tongue across the red line and licks his lips, humming in approval. Yusuf is still just staring incredulously when Eames motions with his head.

He gulps audibly as Eames nods to him, and unsurely straddles his abdomen, tracing crimson circles on Cobb's chest. Yusuf hesitates for only a minute before putting his fingers in his mouth, tasting, curious.

Meanwhile, Eames lifts Cobb's legs over his shoulders and begins probing. Cobb's vision explodes into sparks, feeling spiteful and satisfied as he bucks his hips against Eames and fights Yusuf's tongue with his own. They push and he pushes back, all trying to find each other's limits.

The room fades to black as they all wake up in the familiar beach chairs, machine hissing as it tries to push the last of the liquid through its tubes.

"So it's possible to concoct the tranquilizers in a dream as well. Fascinating!" Yusuf says eagerly. He jumps immediately for his notebook, burying his eyes in spindling writing.

Eames grins at Cobb as he's removing the needles from his wrists. "That was certainly an entertaining experiment. We'll have to play again sometime, eh Cobb?"

* * *

By now he's said it to a hundred or so people, their virgin minds opening wide and swallowing his words whole, viciously bleeding: "Naturally, you begin to feel intimacy with anyone sharing your dream. Here is where the human brain is the most open, and not the dreamer or the creator alone."

It's impossible to deny that Ariadne was the one who took to it the quickest. As her first dream world exploded, she panicked, but turned her eyes to Cobb; screaming not curses, but instead questions. Her second world exploded too: this time blossoming violently like springtime in accelerated motion, a spiraling city full of eagerness and curiosity, her efforts quickly surpassing those of her teacher.

Cobb is very good at holding people at a distance. But when Ariadne catches him in his experiments, eyes upturned to his. She splays her thin fingers through his callused ones and pulls his arms around her waist, effectively trapping him against her. He doesn't know how to resist.

He goes slow at first. This is something he knows. Her hands are shaking but her eyes are firm and inquisitive, not leaving his as her fingers glide across his body like sunbeams. Glass crackles under their feet as she pushes him down on the hotel couch.

Ariadne navigates his clothing easily and pulls his shirt open, tracing spindling patterns on his chest. Her white scarf flutters in the breeze from the open window, and he is snapped to his senses. Cobb puts his hands on her shoulders and she stops, smiling, understanding.

She leans down instead, kissing the skin next to his lips a little unsurely, and wraps her arms around his neck. Her lithe body is warm against his, smelling of salt and sandalwood. Her touch is comforting, and foreign, and familiar. They stay like that until the time is up. Ariadne wakes before he does, and puts her hand over his before leaving.

* * *

He's needed to say this to fewer people; most that he tests want to see the worlds they've always wanted, instead of the ones that they know. Nevertheless, some need to be guided. "Use only parts of real places. When you create a place that you know, it leaves the door open for the dreamer to fill the world with his memories."

Saito flicks the lock of the office door without looking, an obviously practiced movement. He's dominating in his well-tailored grey suit, gentle but dominating. Cobb's slicked hair is falling loose, his simpler black suit feverishly ripped open. The tea tray he was carrying is spilled on the floor as Saito catches his wrist, pushing him down over the desk.

Cobb says something in Japanese breathlessly. He doesn't catch the exact words, but he knows the meaning. The office is blindingly white, reflected in the expensive chestnut desk that is resisting all of Saito's fingerprints. He crushes their mouths together, the feeling of his mustache on Cobb's lip sending shivers up his spine. Saito probes deeply with his tongue, trying to learn every crevice of the other man's mouth.

Cobb doesn't mind being led.

They push apart momentarily for air. Outside is a stark white figure, looking like a sharp cloud against the bright blue sky, legs dangling between the metal bars. Brunette hair flashes and moves stiffly in the wind, the breeze blowing up instead of across. A bottle of window fluid tips off the stage and falls into oblivion quickly, disappearing from Cobb's line of sight below the floor.

Abruptly Cobb spins Saito and drops to his knees. His eyes close as Saito moans unintelligibly in Japanese, and his vision goes black when the other man grips his hair with both hands.

When they wake, they are both breathless and sweating. Cobb and stumbles to the other room, groping at his pockets.

Arthur looks at Saito bemusedly. "How was your first session?"

"I see what you mean. It feels very real. However, the real world cannot compare now, I assure you." Saito says in his thick Japanese accent, laughing.

* * *

Again, to a hundred people. "You never remember your whole dream, do you? Tell me. How did we get here?"

He and Arthur have known each other for what seems like forever. They met on some job or another, though the details have faded like cheap dye.

Lord knows Arthur is alone, perhaps too fussy to find a woman, perhaps apprehensive because of Cobb, perhaps because of Cobb. Nights upon nights far from their homes became fierce attraction. Perhaps it was loneliness.

Cobb has Arthur pinned to the warehouse wall, his vest thrown to the side haphazardly. Almost violently he thrusts his tongue into the other man's mouth, pressing his knee up in between his legs as Arthur grabs at his back with carefully trimmed nails, leaving deep red imprints in his back, grasping like he is trying to take Cobb's body completely into his own.

Arthur's legs turn weak and they both clatter to the ground, not even pausing for air as they devour each other's mouths, eyes wide open and lusting. Cobb runs his hands feverishly down Arthur's slimmer body, ripping the buttons of his expensive dress shirt and sending them flying across the cold concrete floor.

Arthur doesn't even protest. He shrugs what's left of the shirt from his shoulders and sets to work on unbuttoning Cobb's pants, cursing when his fingers are too shaky with need to perform the task, Cobb's hands briskly folding over his to help.

He's soon slamming his body into Arthur's, punctuated gasps of pain echoing through the warehouse, peppered with drawn out moans. Cobb's fingers leave bright red bruises on Arthur's hips, Arthur's glowing gashes on Cobb's neck. Their lips crash together and teeth puncture soft inner cheeks, but neither of them notice.

A familiar figure appears like lighting from behind him and aggressively pulls Cobb back by the hair. The bullet first pierces Arthur's leg and then his forehead as he looks on in shock, soon followed by a flash of white pain as Cobb bolts up in the chair. He's not even trying to go to the other room as he pats his pockets frantically.

Arthur stares remorsefully at Cobb for a moment, but soon rips the needles from his wrists and speaks soft words to Cobb. He rubs circles into his shoulders and brushes the sweat from his temples as Cobb falls into something close to sleep, restless and black.

* * *

Cobb is walking. Alone. The hotel lobby is quiet save for the rustling of roses in his arms. As he checks in the woman at the front desk smiles knowingly and greets him by name before handing him the card key. He steps into the elevator, which smells familiarly of cleaning spray and cigarette smoke, steps out onto the familiar floor. The hallways are bathed in a warm red light like a sunset.

As he opens the door his eyes are covered, and his lips curve upwards. "Mal." He breathes, turning to meet her. She pulls him into a fierce, brief kiss, the roses crushed between them. Mal grabs his hand and leads him into the room, _their _room.

The flowers are tossed without looking onto the coffee table and they trace each other's bodies like it's the first time, gentle and curious fingers and sighs over flushed skin. Mal's body melts from her black dress onto the bed and Cobb lies over her, catching her lips in breathless kisses.

His fingers entwine with hers and she turns them so she's sitting on top of him, her eyes smoldering and searing into his, shuddering with need. He restrains his touch to only slow caressing against her cheek and she leans into his touch, her eyelids fluttering.

Now sunlight brushes over their room service dinner and they entwine fingers again over their filet mignon and chicken Francaise, the scent of roses mingling with delicate red wine, and Cobb cups his wife's face in his hands, leaning his forehead against hers.

"Do you remember what you said to me when you proposed to me?" She says, just like she always does. "You said you had a dream…"

"Of course I do." It's a little bit late.

"You said you had a dream that we'd grow old together." Mal says, and she is rapidly fading into grey, grey, and Cobb wakes up hooked up to a machine. Alone.

The world before his eyes is spinning. Since it's not stopping, does that mean that he's dreaming?

"Dreams feel real while we're in them. It's only when we wake up that we realize that something was strange."


End file.
